Thursday, March 15, 2012

Lauren Smiley, late of SF Weekly, delves deeply into the two personas of the sheriff, one political, the other personal, for San Francisco magazine. The title provides the drift: “Good Ross, Bad Ross.” Here’s a sampler:

“His case is going to be the focus of many crisis communication courses for years to come,” says Sam Singer, the city’s go-to spokesman for big-name clients with high-profile problems. “The public would have sympathy for a man who stepped up to the plate and said, ‘I have a bad temper and did wrong by my wife and child.’ That’s the story he needed to tell.”

But Mirkarimi’s story is more complicated than that. It’s the story of how a boisterous supervisor charmed his constituents while privately alienating his ideological allies. Of how an ambitious politician was gaining power citywide while losing traction in city hall. Of how a reformer who spent his career trying to keep law enforcement in check gave police and prosecutors the legal means to take him down. The truth was, Mirkarimi had been bullying people behind the scenes for years before he quarreled with his wife this past New Year’s Eve. The difference this time was that he left a bruise.